Category: Winston S. Churchill

motorist
A roadside picnic next to his 1938 Austin 10. (Wikimedia Commons)
Cars & Churchill: Blood, Sweat & Gears (2) Daimlers…

Cars & Churchill: Blood, Sweat & Gears (2) Daimlers…

Hav­ing writ­ten about cars and Win­ston Churchill for fifty years, I final­ly pro­duced a piece on them both. From exot­i­ca like Daim­ler, Napi­er and Rolls-Royce to more pro­sa­ic makes like Austin, Hum­ber and Wolse­ley, the sto­ry was three decades in com­ing. I am sat­is­fied that it is now complete.

Part 2, con­tin­ued from Part 1: Excerpt only. For foot­notes,  all illus­tra­tions and a ros­ter of Churchill’s cars, see The Auto­mo­bile, (UK), August 2016. A pdf of the arti­cle is avail­able upon request: click here.

Wolseley to Austin

In the ear­ly 1930s Churchill switched from Wolse­ley to Austin cars: small fours and big six­es.…

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motorist
Churchill at the wheel of his Wolseley 10, 1925; the bulb horn was used frequently in assorted mad rushes. (Author’s collection)
Cars & Churchill: Blood, Sweat & Gears (1) Mors the Pity

Cars & Churchill: Blood, Sweat & Gears (1) Mors the Pity

“You fool!” the policeman shouted. Then he “swore most richly for some seconds.” Churchill’s head hung. “He did have the civic sense to say he was sorry,” Thompson continued. “...the matchless voice of the man identified him at once to the constable.” ‘Sorry, Mr. Churchill,’ the policeman apologised. "Then the majesty of the constable’s office and the disgusting guilt of the violator brought forth, in gentle sarcasm, a caution that withered Churchill and kept him silent clear to the Channel. ‘Do try to stay in the road, sir.’”

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Celwyn Ball, British First Army 1940-46

Celwyn Ball, British First Army 1940-46

Celwyn 1922-2016

In 1992, I told Cel­wyn of my Lat­vian fore­bears and wish to vis­it the Baltic. He said he knew the area well, vol­un­teered to join me, and made arrange­ments for a tour. Gen­er­ous­ly he showed me places I nev­er expect­ed to see. I remem­ber our strolling Bralu Kapi, Latvia’s Arling­ton, where heroes lie. There I heard Cel­wyn mus­ing, from his own expe­ri­ence, about what they must have gone through. A vet­er­an had told us of dig­ging ditch­es in the flat coun­try, against oncom­ing Russ­ian tanks, in 1945 as the Red Army rolled west. They were Sher­mans sent through Lend-Lease, their white stars recent­ly repaint­ed red.…

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Churchill @ Vancouver, 26 July 2015

Churchill @ Vancouver, 26 July 2015

Vancouver

The Churchill Soci­ety of British Colum­bia presents “An Evening with Churchill,” Tues­day 26 July 2016.

Loca­tion: Bar Three, The Van­cou­ver Club, 915 Hast­ings Street West, Van­cou­ver, B.C.

Time: Wine & cheese starts at 5:00 pm, Pro­gram from 5:50 – 7:00 pm.

Cost: $25 each for a mem­ber of the Soci­ety. $35 each for a non-mem­ber. $40 for a mem­ber accom­pa­nied by a spouse, part­ner or fam­i­ly mem­ber. (Includes one tick­et per attendee for a glass of wine or beer, or two soft drinks. Addi­tion­al drinks can be pur­chased from the bar.)         

Dress: Busi­ness attire.

Please inform Admin­is­tra­tor April Acco­la of your atten­dance by email or reg­is­ter online at our web­site.…

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Brexit
Eurozone participation (Wikipedia). BLUE: 19 EU members in the Eurozone. YELLOW: EU members obliged to join the Eurozone (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden). PINK: EU member with euro opt-out (Denmark). RED: EU member voting to leave (UK). GREEN: Non-EU mini-states using euro with a monetary agreement (Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City). PURPLE: Non-EU states using the euro unilaterally (Kosovo, Montenegro).
Brexit: Britannia Waives the Rules

Brexit: Britannia Waives the Rules

Brex­it after­math, June 2016: In vot­ing to leave the Euro­pean Union, Britain has opt­ed to become anoth­er Nor­way. One of the most pros­per­ous and con­tent­ed coun­tries in the world, Nor­way does fine with its own laws, cur­ren­cy, and trade agree­ments, includ­ing a good one with the EU. It is hard­ly a bad model.

Short-term troubles

The gnash­ing of teeth over the upset Brex­it vic­to­ry resounds around the world. For awhile, chaos will attend finan­cial mar­kets, and the pound will take a dip (boost­ing British exports).

The Scots vot­ed against Brex­it, though not in the num­bers pre­dict­ed.…

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Maisky and Churchill: Hard to Put Down

Maisky and Churchill: Hard to Put Down

Ivan Maisky: “The great­est sin of mod­ern states­man is vac­il­la­tion and ambi­gu­i­ty of thought and action.”

Gabriel Gorodet­sky, ed., The Maisky Diaries: Red Ambas­sador to the Court of St. James’s. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 634 pages, $28.80, Kin­dle $19.99, audio­book $36.32.

Excerpt­ed from the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. To read in full, click here.

____________________________

A strik­ing work of schol­ar­ship (actu­al­ly an abridge­ment of a three-vol­ume com­plete work com­ing in 2016), this book will inspire fresh schol­ar­ship on Churchill, Rus­sia and World War II. Ivan Maisky was a pen­e­trat­ing observ­er of 1932-43 Britain, and Gabriel Gorodet­sky con­nects every long gap in his diaries with informed accounts of what was hap­pen­ing.…

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Marshall: “Noblest Roman of Them All”

Marshall: “Noblest Roman of Them All”

Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty Press releas­es this month the sev­enth and final vol­ume of The Papers of George Catlett Mar­shall: “The Man of the Age,” Octo­ber 1, 1949 – Octo­ber 16, 1959. It was mas­ter­ful­ly edit­ed by Mark Stol­er and Daniel Holt under the aus­pices of the Mar­shall Cen­ter. It joins its pre­de­ces­sors pre­sent­ing the papers of one of the great­est gen­er­als and states­men of his age (1880-1959). I quick­ly assigned it for review by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project, for its many ref­er­ences to Churchill in George Marshall’s final phase. This and the pre­vi­ous vol­ume are indis­pens­able for any­one wish­ing to under­stand the com­pli­cat­ed inter­na­tion­al scene imme­di­ate­ly after World War II.…

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Trump on Women: Should’ve Said Something Else

Trump on Women: Should’ve Said Something Else

Some­thing Mr. Trump said remind­ed me of a piece Win­ston Churchill wrote in 1947: The Dream. But he might not entire­ly rel­ish the reminder. (And this is not, believe me, any attempt to com­pare Trump to Churchill.)

The Dream is a styl­ish short sto­ry about Churchill’s imag­i­nary con­ver­sa­tion with the ghost of his father, Lord Ran­dolph Churchill, who died in 1895. In a touch­ing, rather sad con­ver­sa­tion, the 73-year-old Win­ston relates to the 45-year-old Ran­dolph all that has hap­pened since 1895, with­out dis­clos­ing the roles he him­self had played.

They dis­cuss elec­tions. Lord Ran­dolph asks, “What is the franchise?”

“Uni­ver­sal,” his son replies.…

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Thatcher to Congress, 1985: Worth Remembering

Thatcher to Congress, 1985: Worth Remembering

Mar­garet Thatch­er, in her thought­ful and pre­scient remarks, post­ed by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project, reached back into his­to­ry to recall how far the Eng­lish-Speak­ing Peo­ples have come since vic­to­ry in World War II, and how much remained to accom­plish. Like Churchill, Lady Thatch­er would be pleased that for the most part, they met the tests before them, in his words, with “a stern sen­ti­ment of impar­tial jus­tice, and above all the love of per­son­al free­dom, or as Kipling put it: ‘Leave to live by no man’s leave under­neath the law.’”…

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“Boneless Wonder” vs. “Dodgy Dave”

“Boneless Wonder” vs. “Dodgy Dave”

"I remember when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum’s circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the programme which I most desired to see was the one described as 'The Boneless Wonder.' My parents judged that that spectacle would be too revolting and demoralising for my youthful eyes, and I have waited 50 years to see the Boneless Wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench." —WSC, 1931

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